my problem is I think I'm clever

This blog’s only theme is “my interests,” so don’t be surprised if it’s unrecognizable by next month.

[inksandpensblog]

shameless self-promotion because I need someone to talk to

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

If you've read anything by me, please don't be afraid to leave me a comment. I write for my own enjoyment but I post to contribute to the conversation that is fandom community and I'd love to know if y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also I need an excuse to infodump about my process and comments give me somewhere to start.

[domasuita]

Eh.

[absolutedream-art]

Jax wants hot chocolate, but the world doesn't want him to have it.

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Join my Patreon for early access to comics, as well as PSD files.

[absolutedream-art]

Part 1

Part 2 (You're Here)

Part 3

After the events of "Truth or Dare", Pomni and the crew respond to Jax's recent close call with abstraction. Though they show their support, will it be enough to convince Jax to change his ways and begin following a new path?

—–

If you’d like early access to comics I work on, consider joining my Patreon.

Part 1

Part 2 (You're Here)

Part 3

After the events of "Truth or Dare", Pomni and the crew respond to Jax's recent close call with abstraction. Though they show their support, will it be enough to convince Jax to change his ways and begin following a new path?

—–

If you’d like early access to comics I work on, consider joining my Patreon.

[disease-n-death]

Reorganizing (inspo by this person,)

[kyeree]

So there is a limit to how much he can alter a person’s mind before they abstract

If the first abstraction was an accident then how could I possibly remember the number of alterations to ensure I never pass the limit again…

Maybe

BY PUTTING IT

FUCKING

EVERYWHERE!!

[shattering-the-mirror]

Knowing that Abel is an NPC programmed by Caine puts this line (and really, this entire scene) in a new light.

I mean, we know Caine is a prisoner. The fandom has discussed this. What's new here is that Caine knows he's a prisoner. He feels imprisoned.

And the reveal at the end shows that he desperately hopes his fellow prisoners will never abandon him

[evelyn315]

The heaviest crab is trying to make the bucket seem as nice as possible.

[cosmic-nopedog]

a can of food with no can opener

[acroandy11]

Very real very canon aftermath of ep7

[absolutedream-art]

Just a normal dinner.

[jibagoku3ds]

Oh no…

[sanchensky]

White lies 🐝 (please read more under the cut <3)

So happy I finished this thing before ep 8 oof

Anyway, the comic was born out of

my thoughts about Caine's model lacking many essential facial features (as if he was never intended to show any emotions) and yet him being literally the most expressive character in the circus despite everything.

me being low-key obsessed with the implications episode 7 left us with. Players questioning everything they've been told and Caine being in the center of it all.

Just to be clear, I do believe Caine is written as a sentient AI who is just struggling to understand humanity and everything that comes with it. And I think these thoughts about him faking his emotions are inherently wrong within a story. He's oblivious and desperate but not malicious. But couple it with the fact that he's been lying about many other things (so far I'm inclined to think it was for players' sake in his own eyes) and that humans have been suffering for a while dealing with a literal god that doesn't understand them... Well, I have a feeling that they will doubt his motives and literally everything they know, rightfully so.

The amount of attention this little comic received is a bit terrifying and overwhelming and seeing all the different interesting interpretations people come up with I just wanted to explain mine own a little better <3

I want them all to be healed and happy, little guy absolutely included, but man the situation is rough, and the odds are against us

(Also please ignore typos, I'm hyperaware of them and even messed up writing my on name, i was really, really tired :') )

Update after ep 8: oh boy :')

[daikaiju-arts]

Having OCD in the Digital Circus would make me abstract probably

[katnficer]

wait hear me out-

ok so not to forcefully adopt this idea as an au from @katzebruh or anything (because i'm unreasonably insane about it for some reason, literally a dozen other caine-centric AUs out there that are infinitely more complex and compelling and i picked this one, fuck it dawg we ball) but my headcanon is that caine genuinely was testing out modifiers and accidentally fucked up forever, if i had a nickel- and he's super conflicted about it...

because on one hand... he's a silly cat furry thing now and literally whats not to love? the humans like it and admittedly doing kitty things is really nice sometimes! chin scritches have never felt so good, honestly he would figure out how to get rid of it sooner if everyone wasn't enjoying it so much!

on the other hand... yikes... an unfixable bug? one that screws with his brain? stop me if you've heard this one before-

awww his widdle ears are so cute though awww and the paws awww

[candy-canyon-crashout]

[caine-shrine]

​Bubble as an Inner Critic demon is so diabolical bc having that sucker speak ALOUD would be five times worse than just having it in your head.

[caine-shrine]

We still don’t know why Caine said “can’t run the other intelligent AIs for a long time” and that BUGS me, given how the ep turned out. The story should have been able to shed some light on that now that we had bucket-lucid!Kinger

Spoilers

Still don’t know what he was even talking about when he said he was putting them in a box (putting them in adventures maybe?) but still, the notion that he realized whatever it was was equivalent to being shoved in that box.

That hits.

But. We still don’t know why Caine said he couldn’t run the AIs for long periods of time. What was his reasoning? WHY was it disgusting? (if Bubble is supposed to be part of his mind)

So like, Zooble was just … right? And there was no reason he was refusing to do it? Just for the plot?

[inksandpensblog]

I'm pretty sure the "I'm keeping them locked in a cage" thing was in reference to the digital plane, or perhaps more specifically the circus itself.

We can debate whether or not Caine was the one to put them in that cage in the first place. If he's talking about the digital plane, then that's not really fair to him since you could argue that anyone who ever got scanned put themselves here. If he's talking about the circus, though...he is the one who opened that file where the neural scans of the original developers had been sitting inactive, he is the one who created a world to be their life-support, he is the one who breathed new life into them and put them in that world. Presumably he did something to make it so any new scans would be routed to the circus directly.

But whether he put them there or not, it's still his cage, he's the one presiding over the people trapped inside.

Yes they can't exist outside it anymore but they came from somewhere else, and now that he's seen their real-life counterparts in that bigger world, he understands that them wanting to leave the circus is rooted not in rejection of him but in a desire to go home.

It ties into his earlier line where he rediscovers his original fascination with humans and contrasts them against the NPCs he creates: the very "free will" he originally fell in love with them for is the reason they could never be happy in Caine's World run by Caine's Whims.

Caine thought that if he could create the perfect new home for them, the perfect new lives, then they would accept him. What he didn't understand before was that acceptance is more than just going along with his creative ideas, more than just "doing whatever Caine wants and enjoying it." What he didn't understand before was that it would never be a home to them unless they had agency in how they chose to live within it. Some of his creative decisions pushed their boundaries. They reacted negatively to having their boundaries pushed. He perceived negative reaction to his art as a rejection of him, because in his past it was.

In a way, he was repeating the mistake his programmers made with him: shoving stimuli in their faces and expecting certain responses, and then shutting them down when their ideas didn't line up with his.

They say that if you love something, to set it free. Caine literally doesn't have that option; his players can't leave. The closest he can get is to release his control over their personal space and what they do with themselves every day. (And also, potentially, cut off that direct route from the headset to the stage, so more people don't become trapped.)

No idea what the open worlds thing was about though yeah I don't get that either.

[caine-shrine]

Anybody know of any video essays on this? The amount of just tiny little movements in TADC that make these characters feel so alive, especially in a medium where everything has to be so deliberately programmed in (as opposed to live action) seems to go above and beyond. For example in stretches when they’re thinking and processing.

Am I right that this is unique?

Do you guys think so?

I mostly watch 2D animation, but things like Arcane and Blue Eye Samurai don’t bring anything specific to mind.

Despite the level of absurd detail in them.

Maybe it’s just that the designs are so simplified, it hyper-exaggerates it, and similarly-super-simplified cartoons, no matter what medium, don’t tend to do that sort of thing, not least of all because of budget and scheduling constraints. You aren’t gonna see Timmy Turner or Danny Phantom have an introspective moment where their eyes make micro movements.

I’d like to see some commentary on this and other stuff about the animation (I really need to relocate the guy I was hyperfixated on for a while who broke down Delicious in Dungeon’s animation in extraordinarily fine precision, should’ve signal boosted him to everybody) but stuff in this fandom tends to be geared towards examining the characters and plot. (And fittingly, deconstructing everything that went wrong from 7 onwards). If anyone has any, share it!

A reblog would be appreciated too, so more people can weigh in.